On ‘Middle America’, Malkmus’s wry wordplay and sunny twang create an ode to underdogs everywhere, with bittersweet words of encouragement for the ramshackle character on their receiving end. Only SM & the Jicks can craft this kind of brightly low-key anthem, a perfect three-minute-thirty-second country-speckled gem about life’s questions big (the inevitable passage of time; aging) and small (getting shitfaced; blushing the color of Robitussin).

Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks will tour North America in the summer, hitting major markets including Chicago, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Nashville, San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland. Fans can likely expect a further taste of new music, on top of the band’s beloved catalogue. Full tour dates below.

In 2010, following the success of the Von Südenfed record, it was agreed that Domino would release the next album by The Fall. I was charged with writing the biography for the release and was given a number to ring in order to speak with Mark E. Smith. Elena Poulou answered the phone and in the background I could hear a raucous noise I assumed to be the band rehearsing. Although this was unlikely as I was calling Mark and Elena at their home.

'Sorry,' Elena said as the noise increased in volume and now included laughter and animated shouting 'could you call tomorrow same time, it's not convenient'.

When I telephoned the next day Elena answered once again, apologised for the day before as Mark came briskly to the phone.

'Alright, yeah' he said 'we're going to get this record out. What’s taking so long?' Mark E Smith then chuckled and for the next ten minutes he spoke with the combination of politeness, indignation and occasional contrariness on which his reputation rested.

I asked him about the new album's opening track 'Bury Parts 1 & 3', 'I fucking hate the place' he said, as well as the album's closing number 'Weather Report 2' a song that shared an emotional tenderness and tone with 'Bill Is Dead' from the 1992 album Extricate.

'Well,’ he continued 'I really like the band at the moment and think it’s the best we've sounded. I mean I would say that but I mean it.'

The defining characteristic of 'Weather Report 2' and 'Bill Is Dead' is the rarely heard vulnerability in Smith's voice and a lyric in which he talks openly and dramatically about his life. There was a pause that indicated this brief moment of sentimentality was sufficient and that our conversation had now ended.

Your Future Our Clutter was well received and continued the momentum The Fall had regained at the turn of the century, when a run of strong releases, the renewed interest in Post Punk and their discovery by a new generation led to one of their most energetic and popular periods.

No one would ever doubt Smith's work ethic but by the late 1990s his well-documented behavioural problems, together with the sense of The Fall operating on a treadmill of contractual obligations and cash in hand reissues had curdled his doggedness. Some of the records from this period such as Levitate and The Marshall Suite are eerie in a way few other Fall records are eerie. On them Smith sounds under resourced, both financially and emotionally, to resist his investiture as an Indie National Treasure. A situation he clearly finds intolerable. The productivity rate of the prole art threat had by now threatened the band’s future. At the concert I attended at Dingwalls in '98 the band played as a trio of Smith, Julia Nagle and a drummer, Kate Themen. For ten minutes towards the end the choreographer Michael Clarke joined them on bass. Many present found the performance riveting, but I suspect most assumed they had witnessed the band's final London concert.

Parts of their subsequent survival lie in the regard and mystique with which The Fall were held outside the UK. In the record shop I worked in almost twenty-five years ago, I came close to convincing a young Will Oldham to part with a portion of his fee from the previous night's concert for a mint copy of Fall In A Hole. On a visit to the Domino office Bill Callahan once enquired about the merits of 1997's Levitate, a record very few people I knew had bothered listening to. And despite his regular criticism of the band, Pavement covered The Classical from Hex Enduction Hour for a Peel Session that year. Its inclusion moved the DJ to send the band a personal note of thanks.

It's not difficult to imagine how exotic the early Fall must have seemed to young people in America with enquiring minds. On the 1981 live album A Part Of America Therein, the band are introduced as being from the 'From the riot torn streets of Manchester, England'. The Fall's music of that era is as evocative of Britain in the early 1980s as any World In Action documentary. The lyrics to 'Winter' feature a 'cleaning lady', 'alcoholics dry out house', and a 'feminist Austin maxi with anti nuclear sticker'. The accompanying music is played by a band with a listlessness that, like much of the country at the time, is almost pathological.

The performance the band gave on the Peel session version of 'Winter' is particularly dramatic. On many of these recordings Smith's voice is often louder in the mix and the BBC studio arrangements clearly suited the band. Perhaps Smith was also aware how symbiotic the relationship between The Fall, the radio session and the DJ had become. These were sessions listened to by people who resisted the idea of Smith as an avuncular curmudgeon. They saw him more as an avant-garde Johnny Cash: a man in a black leather jacket and the same neat haircut who was incapable of stopping and whose eyes had become ingrained with crow's feet at an early age. Someone who lived by their wits and was well aware they were sharper and more resilient than those of his contemporaries.

Three years ago I invited Smith to do a Q&A at the stage at Green Man Festival I was then curating. He and the band arrived backstage in their usual manner, in a vehicle branded in the livery of Salford Van Hire. For two hours they sat in the sunshine decompressing from the journey down, laughing and drinking but not to excess, merely enjoying the moment.

When it was time for Smith to take the stage I led him to the side entrance. His right arm shot out with an involuntarily spasm.

'Fucking hell' he whispered 'I didn't know it was this big, can you get us a beer?' I duly passed him a can that he downed in one, before strutted on to the stage with a theatrical sniff and his usual swagger. He received an ovation from the nine hundred people gathered there to see him and for a brief moment a smile cracked across his face. The interview was sponsored by the music magazine Mojo and consisted of questions sent in from its readers. For the next 50 minutes he held forth on matters that provoked his ire: music magazines, Mojo in particular, festivals, Stewart Lee and matters he found inspiring, including Ultramagnetic MCs and Methodism.

Superorganism, one of 2018’s most hotly tipped new artists, today announce full details of their highly anticipated debut album. The eight piece band - a sprawling, multi-limbed collection of international musicians and pop culture junkies who have been shortlisted in the BBC Sound Of and VEVO dscvr polls among others – willrelease their self-titled debut on 2nd March via Domino.

Self-produced, written and recorded in the east London house-stroke-studio-stroke band HQ they all share together (imagine a squat version of the Brill Building, or a lo-fi, DIY take on Max Martin’s Cheiron studio), Superorganism is a spectacularly confident debut record that beams with a sense of wonky fun, a kaleidoscopic riot of sound and visuals. Influenced by the world-building depth of artists like Devo, Beck and The Avalanches, Superoganism soundtrack’s the band’s rapid trajectory from shared house side project to global audiovisual powerhouse and features previous singles ‘Something For Your M.I.N.D.’ and ‘It’s All Good / Nobody Cares’ as well as their brand single ‘Everybody Wants To Be Famous’.

Revealed today for the very first time, ‘Everybody Wants To Be Famous’ is accompanied by a stunning video from Superorganism’s very own Robert Strange and can be watched right now below.

Meanwhile, Superorganism will be taking their acclaimed live show on the road throughout 2018, including extensive UK, European and north American headline tours. The full dates are below, including a London headline show at the 1000 capacity Oval Space on 8th March, with further information available from http://www.wearesuperorganism.com/#tour

07/12/17

When Wild Beasts announced that they would be calling it a day, the news came with an unusual absence of drama. There were no bust-ups or breakdowns to report, no warring words, not even a trace of the trademark “creative differences”. Instead there was a dignified and heartfelt message to their fans that explained that the band had run its course.

For those who’d watched the Cumbrian group grow from purveyors of peculiar guitar pop into one of the most inventive and important bands of their generation, the news came as a shock. Weren’t they just hitting the peak of their powers? Perhaps that was the point.

“I think there's a life cycle with any band,” says Hayden Thorpe. “It reaches a point where the snake begins to eat its tail. Our last album, ‘Boy King’, felt just like our first record in many ways – in its fuck you spirit, in its sense of self-destruction.”

Wild Beasts will play their final ever shows in February next year, and we bid the band a bittersweet farewell with Last Night All My Dreams Came True– a live studio album to be released on February 16th via Domino Documents.

Last Night All My Dreams Came True is a career-spanning collection and features songs from each of Wild Beasts’ studio albums with an emphasis on Boy King, their most direct record yet. Looking back on Wild Beasts’ back catalogue and the themes they tackled, there is a sense of prescience – toxic masculinity, gender fluidity, the conflicts surrounding class, politics and art were no bandwagon jumps, often becoming hot topics in the media several years after they’d been eloquently dealt with on record.

Today, we are pleased to share ‘The Devil’s Palace’, a rarely-played track that blends ‘The Devil’s Crayon’, from the quartet’s debut Limbo, Panto, and ‘Palace’, from 2014’s Present Tense. An exclusive for the record, it showcases the vocal interplay between Thorpe’s falsetto and Tom Fleming’s baritone perfectly.

Recorded in two days over the summer at RAK Studios, Last Night All My Dreams Came True is the second official Domino Documents release and has more than fulfilled the Domino Documents aim to capture a band at the height of their powers, recording a selection of their finest songs.

“It’s us as tight and slick as we ever have been,” adds Tom. “And it’s also us giving the fewest fucks we've ever given. There’s a sense of celebration and destructiveness combined, a sense that the fetters are off. Not that they were ever on ... but that sense of limited time before you shuffle off is very much a motivator.”

And make no mistake; this is the last time Wild Beasts will be doing such things. This is no hiatus and there are no crafty eyes on a future reunion. “We get to leave our desk by our own accord,” concludes Hayden, “and that makes us very lucky. Whoever gets to do that?”

24/11/17

Domino seeks a Product Manager to join its London team.

Product Managers at Domino are in charge of running artist campaigns inside the company.

The successful candidate will have significant experience in working closely with recording artists and their managers while a proven track record in devising and delivering creative and notable marketing campaigns is essential

The candidate should have a solid general knowledge of the music industry, the marketplace, the digital space and how this informs all aspects of marketing.

The role also includes being responsible for the creation of all campaign content - so the candidate will need to be confident in commissioning high quality music videos, remixes, artwork and all types of digital content / marketing assets.

Responsibilities include:

• Devising and implementing quality and highly creative marketing campaigns alongside the rest of the team, for a designated roster of artists.

• Delivering the campaign to the rest of the Domino global team.

• Formatting and origination of physical and digital releases and liaising with our distributer on all aspects of driving retail sales and retail marketing initiatives.

• Responsible for all content origination and commissioning and delivery of all video, audio and digital content, as well as marketing assets, to meet deadlines and relevant specs, liaison with management/licensors to ensure global co-ordination.

• Responsible for originating the overall timeline for the campaign and making sure the various deliverables are meeting designated deadlines.

• Making sure that all aspects of the campaign are communicated, objectives are set and followed up on by the wider Domino team, and in charge of getting input from the various members of the team on the project, including but not limited to A&R, Marketing/Digital Marketing, Promotions, International, Production, Digital Account Management.

• Managing of given budgets and liaising with the UK GM on budgets for all artists

Minimum 3 years appropriate experience.

Salary dependent on experience.

Please send a covering letter stating how you meet the requirements along with your CV to pmjob@dominorecordco.com before 5pm on Monday 11th December, 2017.

Sorry are a new London band centered around Asha Lorenz and Louis O'Bryen, two 19 year-old childhood best friends. Along with Lincoln Barrett (drums) and Campbell Baum (bass) Sorry have been making a name for themselves on London's underground circuit since 2015.

Although starting life with a conventional rock band set up, Sorry’s tastes are wide-ranging and reflect their age and omnivorous YouTube-era musical upbringing where rock, hip hop, noise, electronic soundscapes, grime and folk all sit side-by-side and without confusion. Accordingly, all these influences and more form the band's unique nascent musical universe - a bold, ambitious and at times irreverent canvas onto which the symbiotic intensity of Lorenz’s and O'Bryen's emotional and hyper-melodic songwriting is projected.

‘Wished’ is their debut studio recording and follows the recent self-release of Home Demo(ns) Vol. 1, an eclectic, homespun 13 track audio/visual mixtape. Recorded by Sean Oakley (Rick Rubin, Frank Ocean) and mixed by Andrew Savours (My Bloody Valentine), it is an enticing first document of the band's effortlessly emotive songwriting and command of atmosphere which will be familiar to anyone who has seen their visceral live shows so far, as well as a glimpse at in-studio production possibilities to be explored in their future work. ‘Wished’ will also be accompanied by a b-side, ‘Lies’ - set to arrive later this month. Both tracks will be packaged together on Sorry’s very first 7” vinyl release on Domino, available to pre-order here.

Sorry will embark on a full U.K. tour supporting South London’s psychedelic soul reinventors Childhood on 16 November - taking in Leeds, Dublin, Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester, Brighton and London - before ending 2017 with their biggest headline show to date at Corsica Studios in London on 5 December. The evening will see the band curate a line up of artists, DJs and visual artists, including Middle England (live), DJ sets from Mica Levi and Glows, and poet Georgie Jesson, plus an exhibition from Flop / Spit Tease.

08/11/17

Domino is very proud to present Microshift, the third album from Hookworms, due for release on February 2nd 2018. With the announcement of Microshift, the band share new track, ‘Negative Space’ – listen HERE.Along with new music, Hookworms will return to the live circuit with dates in both 2017 and in 2018 (a full list of dates and ticket links can be found below).

Microshift is the Leeds band's first new work in over 3 years and marks a seismic shift in their sound, dynamic, songwriting and production, whilst still bearing all the ferocious energy, intricate musicianship and bruised but beautiful song-craft of the previous releases which have quietly made them one of the UK's most revered young bands.

This is the band's third studio album technically but arguably the first in which the studio has been central to its creation. Pearl Mystic and second LP, The Hum were heavily informed by the band's live sound, Microshift on the other hand came to life in the studio, formed out of loops, modular synthesizer sequences, drum machines, homemade samples etc. which were jammed around and layered until the songs began to emerge. The band have also opened their writing to include collaborations with artists such as Richard Formby (on Opener), Christopher Duffin (on Boxing Day) and Alice Merida Richards (on Each Time We Pass).

Radiant, immersive and teeming with light, but still heavy and forceful - the music on Microshift acts as a very deliberate counter to some of the difficult topics the album's lyrics address. Death, disease, heartbreak, body image and even natural disaster are all present here but the overall effect these songs achieve is euphoric catharsis.

The album was written and recorded in full following a complete rebuild of the band’s Suburban Home Studio after the River Aire floods in Leeds in the winter of 2015 which devastated the studio. The band had an incredible response to a GoFundMe campaign and the subsequent help of volunteers over several months to rebuild the studio from nothing is a huge part of the band’s continued existence. Striving through the toughness, it is perhaps no surprise that the record is one of both defiance and darkness. “All of our records are to an extent about mental health,” comments MJ. “Largely this is an album about loss but also about maturing, accepting your flaws and the transience of intimacy”.

25/10/17

‘Always Ascending’ the new album from Franz Ferdinand, is being released by Domino on Friday the 9th of February. Nothing short of a rebirth, the album’s 10 songs are a triumphant recasting of the group, bursting with fresh ideas and vigorous sonic experimentation. You can listen to the first single, also titled ‘Always Ascending’ HERE and download or stream it HERE.

‘Always Ascending’ was recorded at RAK Studios, London and Motorbass in Paris, with the help of French producer extraordinaire Philippe Zdar (Cassius, Phoenix, The Beastie Boys), the mutual affection between band and producer seeping into every dazzling groove. ‘Always Ascending’shows Franz Ferdinand broadening their palate, as exuberant as it is euphoric, creating a sound that singer, Alex Kapranos, refers to as “simultaneously futuristic and naturalistic.”

From the city which jointly played host to the album’s conception, the band will mark the announcement of ‘Always Ascending’ with a live streamed launch event at Paris’s Point Ephémère, to be broadcast from the Franz Ferdinand Facebook page from 8.30pm BST tonight, Wednesday October 25, during which the band will preview a selection of their new recordings.

‘Always Ascending’ is available to pre-order via iTunes and all DSPs now and will be available on CD, vinyl and ltd edition cassette via DomMart, with a special DomMart edition, featuring marbled blue and white vinyl, with a signed print and tote bag.

Tickets for shows in Ireland, UK and Europe will be available to purchase from 9am on Friday the 3rd of November, Japan from the 11th of November and US and Canada from 10am local time October 27th. More information can be found on the band’s website: http://franzferdinand.com

Over the space of three years, two singles and countless gigs, including tour supports with Teenage Fanclub and Real Estate, Glasgow’s Spinning Coin have determinedly, and with single-minded purpose, made their music heard: beautifully rough-hewn guitar pop that takes in frustration, escapism, but also gracefulness and splendour, in equal measure.

The five-piece now announce that their debut album Permo will be released on November 10th via The Pastels’ Domino imprint, Geographic Music and have shared the video for new track ‘Sleepless’.

Recorded with Edwyn Collins at his AED Studios, and at Green Door Studio (the recording centre for the new wave of Glasgow artists) with Stu Evans, Permo is an album of bold steps and simple gestures, coming from a group who have found, seemingly effortlessly, a confident, unpretentious and egalitarian way of working together. Spinning Coin’s two songwriters - Sean Armstrong and Jack Mellin – oscillate taking centre stage on a song; Armstrong’s more melancholic melodies contrasting with Mellin’s urgent refrains.

The fourteen songs on Permo trace all kinds of terrain, though the overarching story might be that of a group looking for escapism, somehow and anyhow, in the midst of a social and cultural climate that’s closing down possibilities for difference and community.

It opens with the gorgeous ‘Raining On Hope Street’, an Armstrong song that was released on 7” earlier this year – there’s an undercurrent to the song, too, as Armstrong reflects that he wanted to write something “slightly spooky, ambiguous and open to interpretation”. ‘Tin’ follows, one of many Mellin songs that looks to the outside world and finds things wanting. “’Tin’ is trying to look at the two extremes of privilege and under-privilege,” he says. It’s a theme that Mellin returns to, with variation, over the course of the album – from the deceptively spry ‘Money Is A Drug’, whose flecks of country-soul charm conceals lyrics calling out ‘class war’ and ‘stupid rules’, through to ‘Powerful’, where Mellin takes on the possibilities of self-empowerment:

Spinning Coin write from lived experience, grounding their songs in an understanding that we’re all finding our way through the world, trying to figure out what the hell is going on out there. Armstrong takes on similar themes with ‘Starry Eyes’, and its blunt lines about how it’s not ‘the right time to celebrate, when people in the world are dying at the hands of the government’, but he also writes some of the album’s more peaceable songs, like the sleepwalking reverie of ’Metronome River’, or the driftwork of ‘Floating With You’.

Elsewhere on Permo, The Pastels’ Katrina Mitchell and Breakfast Muff’sSimone Wilson sing on ‘Be Free’ and ‘Running With The World’ respectively, plus the band have just welcomed new member Rachel Taylor. That’s a typically Spinning Coin development: a group fiercely engaged with community, welcoming new experience into their orbit, and looking for ways to move forwards with a warmth for humanity. It’s writ large across Permo – finding better ways to live, and to be together in the world, against the odds.

Occasionally, along comes a band that perfectly captures so much of what is exciting about music right now. In 2017, mining the golden moments of pop’s past, sights firmly set on the giddy possibilities of music’s future, emitting an infectious sense of wonky fun and producing a kaleidoscopic riot of sound and visuals, that band could well be Superorganism.

Superorganism is a sprawling, multi-limbed collection of international musicians and pop culture junkies. They number eight in total - recruited from London, Japan, Australia and New Zealand - seven of whom now live together in a house-stroke-DIY studio-stroke-band HQ in Homerton, east London.

It was in this house, in early 2017, that the collective had their musical Big Bang! moment. Though they’d previously created music and visuals together, this was something distinctly fresh. They sent the track to their friend Orono, a Japanese student who at that time was studying at high school in Maine, New England. Orono wrote and recorded a vocal part and pressed ‘reply’. What came back across the Atlantic was an intoxicating piece of idiosyncratic, technicolor pop. That track was ‘Something For Your M.I.N.D.’. Superorganism was born.

At that point it’s unlikely any of the members would have expected to hear that song - or Superorganism’s debut AA single ‘It’s All Good’ / ‘Nobody Cares’ - played by Frank Ocean or Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig themselves on their respective radio shows. Or that the band’s identity would be the subject of so much speculation. Or that they would sign a deal with the legendary independent Domino label. Or that there’d be such demand to see Superorganism live that their debut UK show would take place at London’s 700 capacity Village Underground venue. But over the last few months, such is the trajectory of this unique band that that is exactly what has happened.

Today, following a huge amount of online chatter ‘Something For Your M.I.N.D.’ finally gets a full single release. The track will be available on all digital services, as well as a limited-edition, one-sided etched 7” with download card. It is their debut release on Domino.

"SFYM was created purely online. My buddies in London sent me the demo on Facebook, then I wrote the lyrics and recorded the vocals on Garageband via my Macbook microphone in about an hour or two... then it was pretty much done! We just had to add a couple of key missing ingredients to the mix: some sweet backing vocals, a sick artwork, Tucan's magical touch to make the track sound even more dope, and chemical X.

We're more than excited to bring this song to back to life (officially) and to let it, once again, fluoresce on the dark corners of the Internet."

Meanwhile, Superorganism is delighted to announce a run of live dates across the UK, Europe and US. Following a debut live show at Hamburg’s Reeperbahn Festival on 22nd September, they will play their first ever UK show at London’s Village Underground on 5th October. Dates across Europe follow before December sees Superoganism’s debut US shows – at Brooklyn’s House Of Yes on 12th December and Los Angeles’ Moroccan Lounge on 14th December.

27/07/17

Domino seeks radio plugger

Domino is looking for a new radio plugger to join its in house promo team. The successful applicant will work within Domino’s current radio structure and will have an extensive knowledge of all aspects of UK radio. He or she will need established relationships at radio and a proven track record of working successful releases.

The ideal candidate will be articulate, persuasive, knowledgeable, sociable, a frequent gig goer and music lover.

Over the course of their lush, strange album “Althaea”, London duo Trailer Trash Tracys condense a number of disparate styles into music that thrillingly broaches the void between figuration and abstraction. While undeniably beautiful and quite often infectious in parts, this is certainly not pop music by any traditional definition; rather, it appeals to the more intuitive of mind and wild at heart. More than simply becoming a philosophical exercise however, the result is their most ambitious and idiosyncratic body of work to date, one which operates at the very limits of what pop music can be.

Their debut, “Ester”, released in 2012, manifested the band’s approach to making music as a fine balance between chaos and order, laying out a dense and dreamlike ecosystem of Sufi poetry, Solfeggio scales and, floating above it all, Susanne Aztoria’s otherworldly yet emotionally charged vocals. Early singles such as “Strangling Good Guys” and “You Wish You Were Red” proved to be outliers – rather than simply making lo-fi dream pop, the band were instead aiming for something far more subconscious and esoteric.

With “Althaea”, the band continue their investigations into the farther flung reaches of pop music, with stunning results. Spanning 10 deeply esoteric tracks, “Althaea” sees the band drift further afield from traditional song structures to create a new aural lexicon of their own, one as influenced by Filipino carnival music and Latin rhythms as it was by Japanese tropical music from the 80s. Even at their most outwardly pop – the pristine “Eden Machine” for instance, or the swooning “Kalesa”, there is a baroque splendour, and heightened sensuality. The interplay of light and dark, the foreign and the familiar, brings forth an album with manifold pleasures, one which rewards repeated listening and further exploration.

Watch the video for new single “Eden Machine” below aalongside the trailer for the short film of Althaea - as premiered last week at the Whirled Cinema in Brixton.

Bright Phoebus, Lal and Mike Waterson’s 1972 folk-noir masterpiece, has long been recognised as one of British music's legendary lost records. Following the parting of ways of The Watersons and freed from the strictures of folk orthodoxy, Lal and Mike Waterson’s love of words allowed them to serve the needs of their songs in ways that weren’t possible when singing already written songs.

Featuring performances from Lal, Mike and Norma Waterson, Martin Carthy, Richard Thompson, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Tim Hart and Maddy Prior, amongst others, the album is now recognised as a forward-thinking benchmark for the genre. Fans include Arcade Fire, Stephen Malkmus, Billy Bragg, Jarvis Cocker, Richard Hawley – the latter two performed the record themselves in 2013 on the Bright Phoebus Revisited tour.

Domino are pleased to reissue Bright Phoebus – Songs By Lal And Mike Watersonon 4th August, this will be the first time since its release the album will be widely available. Additionally under the supervision of David Suff (Topic/Fledg'ling) and Marry Waterson (daughter of Lal), the album has been remastered from the original tapes.

Alongside the reissue of the original album, there will be a deluxe version containing 12 demos for the album, themselves tinged with their own mythology and previously unreleased. The standard single-disc CD and LP editions replicate the original artwork with lyrics; the deluxe editions of both are double-disc and contain sleeve notes by Pete Paphides.

The origins of Bright Phoebus started in 1971, only a few years after the split of The Watersons whose three albums had a profound effect on the folk world. Following the split, and independently of each other, Mike and Lal had started writing their own songs; after Lal moved back to Hull; they started to cultivate these ideas together.

Not long after, Martin Carthy was visiting for a show, "We did Hull Art School or something, and then the next morning we went round to visit Lal, and she had all these songs. We sat there listening to them and… now, I knew Lal wrote songs but I had never heard any of them prior to this point. It was extraordinary.” Convinced that these songs needed to be heard by the wider world, Martin alerted Steeleye Span bandmate and former Fairport Convention bassist Ashley Hutchings to their existence. “I was instantly in tune with what I heard,” remembered Ashley, “I found an empathy with the songs, and I really would have fought off anyone to play bass on them.”

Ashley got to work; he contacted Bill Leader and set the whole thing up, along with Richard Thompson and Martin Carthy. All Lal and Mike Waterson had to do was allow themselves to be swept along by the collective will of everyone who had either heard or heard about their songs. And when, at the very end of 1971, it emerged that a homesick Norma Waterson would be returning to join them, the heavens looked to be aligning as never before.

Recorded in a week in the basement of Cecil Sharp House, Mike recalled “Lal and I dreamed our way through the recordings. It was magic.” Marry, who was eight at the time, remembered her father George describing the sessions as “a great big party”, people just wandered in. Tim Hart and Maddy Prior are on a few tracks because they happened to walk through the door, so they were lassoed in to do some vocals. One poor sod came in to deliver a package and we said, ‘Right! You’re in! And we stuck some words in front of him and put him in the chorus! He sang away, thank you very much, and then he left!’”

Despite the anticipation for a new ‘Watersons’ record, the release of Bright Phoebus was viewed with suspicion from the conservative folk community and shortly after, Bill Leader’s company went bankrupt and the initial pressing of 2000 LPS soon fell out of print. Since then, the album has become legend, its scarcity not hindering generations of music fans falling for its beguiling atmosphere. Sadly Lal – who passed away from lung cancer in 1998 - never got to see Bright Phoebus receive a full re-evaluation. Mike Waterson did, at least, get to enjoy some of backdated acclaim before his death in 2011. But he remained dogged in his belief that none of that mattered. “You do what you do,” he insisted. “And nothing is right to them, and everything’s right to you. Who are you making the record for? *You.* If fans like your record, then wonderful. If they don’t, well you’ve made it anyway. Because you love the songs.”

The Kills – Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince – will release the Echo Home – Non-Electric EPdigitally on June 2nd, with a limited edition 10” vinyl release available for pre-order today.

Both the physical and digital versions of the Echo Home – Non-Electric EP will feature audio from a stripped down session the band captured recently at Electric Lady Studios in New York. Alongside “Echo Home”, the EP features Ash & Ice track “That Love”, a cover of Rihanna’s “Desperado” (which the band originally played as part of a Sirius XMU session), and the song “Wait”, off the band’s first ever release, Black Rooster EP, which celebrates it’s 15 year anniversary on May 28th.

The Black Rooster EP was originally released on Dim Mak in 2002 and was the start of what’s been an incredible career for Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince of The Kills.

With five full-length albums (the most recent being 2016’s Ash & Ice), four EPs, a documentary, and countless live shows under their belt, the passion and fire they continue to bring to every recording and performance is extraordinary.

In their 15th year as a band, The Kills have been looking back and celebrating with a string of anniversary shows and retrospective features, and now this re-recording of “Wait”, one of the first Kills songs ever released. Steve Aoki, owner of Dim Mak and another artist who has proven a career with similar staying power, recently had some words to share on the release of Black Rooster:

"Many moons ago, back in 2002, I had to make a decision whether to pursue a Ph.D. Program or continue with my label Dim Mak & after hearing a demo from The Kills and becoming the first American label to release their EP Black Rooster, I knew what path I was going to choose. They took me under their wing and I hit the road with them as their tour manager, merch guy, driver (we all took turns) and label. I’ll never forget that and love Jamie and Alison forever. Thank you for believing in lil me when not many people gave two shits about Dim Mak and what we were doing. Ride or Die.” – STEVE AOKI

Peter Perrett - former frontman of The Only Ones - releases his debut solo album How The West Was Wonon June 30th through Domino.

Perrett, whose incisive songcraft and sardonic drawl made him one of the most distinctive voices of the Seventies hasn’t released any music for 20 years. Bearing in mind his most famous song began “I always flirt with death” (‘Another Girl, Another Planet’), this is one comeback that nobody saw coming.

In the hands of certain songwriters, a story of resurrection and redemption might ring a little hollow, but when the songwriter is Peter Perrett, the usual rules have never applied.

Perrett makes each song on How The West Was Won sound natural and effortless, as though he were continuing a briefly interrupted conversation rather than picking up the threads of a solo career that faltered two decades ago. He claims to have barely touched a guitar in the decade between The One’s 1996 album Woke Up Sticky and the 2007 reunion of The Only Ones; with Perrett, a hiatus could so easily turn into a hibernation. Yet Perrett’s familiar voice sounds like it simply stepped out of the room for a few minutes and popped back in again.

Backed by his sons - Jamie and Peter Jr. on lead guitar and bass respectively - and produced by Chris Kimsey (The Rolling Stones), Peter’s intuitive feel for words; his flair for idiosyncratic metaphors and his deadpan wit are all still as sharp as ever.

As demonstrated perfectly by the title track and album opener which Perrett shares today. It finds him railing against American imperialism and celebrity culture. The video is directed by Focus Creeps (Arctic Monkeys/King Krule) and features Peter’s band with whom he recorded the album

The songs on How The West Was Won examine complex emotional terrain and extreme human behaviour, shot through as always with wry self-analysis. In a sense the album is a Perrett family affair: there are love songs (‘An Epic Story’, ‘C Voyeurger’) from Peter to his wife of 47 years Zena. On ‘Something In My Brain’, Perrett discusses good choices, bad choices and ultimately the only choices that will guarantee survival. There are also songs where Perrett opens his curtains and stares out into a much-changed world (‘Man Of Extremes’, ‘Sweet Endeavour’).

How The West Was Won finds Perrett with energy in his blood, rediscovering the importance of rock’n’roll. Having turned 65 over the weekend, he has a fire burning inside him again, and a determination not to blow what could be his last chance.

Tracklisting:

How The West Was Won

An Epic Story

Hard To Say No

Troika

Living In My Head

Man Of Extremes

Sweet Endeavour

C Voyeurger

Something In My Brain

Take Me Home

How The West Was Won is available to pre-order on deluxe LP (coloured vinyl, gatefold sleeve, booklet and black polylined sleeve), standard vinyl (gatefold sleeve, booklet and black polylined sleeve), CD (gatefold wallet sleeve, booklet) and digital.

Additionally, the Dom Mart edition of the deluxe LP features a signed print – limited to 250 copies.

16/03/17

Platinum Tips + Ice Cream(scenes from the water park) is new from Royal Trux. The songs were written over a span of time as wide as eagle’s wings - but the recordings are new, live, unrehearsed and were presented in real time to a few thousand people in California and NYC. Performance art? Yes! But only because, unlike so many other aural “content providers,” Neil Hagerty and Jennifer Herrema are true artists writing their own futures into the present. This was, and will always be, Royal Trux.

This new/“live”/old song/new performance album is yet another chapter in one of the best books out there. Release #647, corresponding to the Cali penal code stating that Prostitution is against the law. Just a reminder so that they didn’t forget.

It’s been a minute since Royal Trux went about making a record in 1-2 days, but they got that system on lock, and once again we see them setting parameters and adhering to them for maxx impact. Platinum Tips + Ice Cream was made in two days…one in Cali and one in NYC. The hold up came when listening back to the “live” qualities, which had been compromised the “AI” of modern, presumptuous (read: “spellcheck”) sound gear. Going back to undo the “smart changes” was tedious, yet imperative - bringing the actual experience and qualities of the performance, the rawness that could be felt and heard LIVE, to a finished form. These recordings conjure the early feral spirit of the band devouring the sophisticated sound of the later years and coughing up a motherfucking hairball of sound.

Royal Trux has always played with the idea of “expectation” like it was a new toy at Christmas, and year in and year out wiped it out like the face of an old teddy bear. For them, a touchdown was best achieved in reverse, via counter-intelligent means. It is fucking INSANE to hear how much that is still the case. This isn’t a butterfly mounted in amber; this is the sound of life….people getting through their set by any means necessary. Thoughts are flying in a million different directions, but staying with the plan is the number one rule. As the rhythm punches, the scabrous tone of Jennifer’s vox is matched only by Neil’s harsh, stinging guitar volleys – and the mad filters passing through the Bass Station. A personal playlist of hits rolls out – and not all rockers, but some slower jams and moments of deep heavy. But no “Back to School”?!? Well, that’s why there are more Trux shows coming up. And like they say, every night is gonna be a great night.

Wrapped up in a Truxian collage scrapping together the crazy quilt of time in their Royal-iverse, which in the light of this reunion is now folding back over itself, Plantinum Tips + Ice Cream collects 12 Royal Trux non-sequiturs in tribute not only to the past but the unending nature of the future.

With Best Troubador, Bonnie 'Prince Billy pays homage to a long-time and forever hero, the late Merle Haggard. A singer who, some 25 years previously, first performed in public by playing a Merle Haggard song, Bonny has often cited Merle's work in performance, on records and in conversation with anyone who was around, even talking to Merle himself for Filter magazine in 2009.

Merle's body of work was considered by Bonny for a record such as this for some time, but his passing in April of 2016 almost put a stop to it. The goal was to participate in the handing forward of the songs of a living legend, as Merle had done so many times in his own career. Writing for Juan and Only in 2012, Bonnie put it this way:

"Merle Haggard is a channeler who has paid ample tribute to those that came before him. He has demonstrated explicitly and implicitly his standing on the shoulders of Tommy Duncan/Bob Wills, Jimmie Rodgers, Floyd Tillman, Lefty Frizzell and many others. There are songs in his catalogue that seep solidly into the headspace of Kentuckians who grew up when I did, and beyond through his vast influence on the George Straits, Dwight Yoakams, Alan Jacksons, John Andersons, Toby Keiths, and too many others. He is not the original, but he may be the most significant junction."

With Merle gone, some of the impetus of the project was in peril. A plan to make the album in Nashville studios was abandoned. The songs still called to be played again, however - and so sessions were endeavored at home, capturing feeling, memory and new expression in familiar confines with the full-hearted playing and singing of the Bonafide United Musicians: Van Campbell, Nuala Kennedy, Danny Kiley, Drew Miller, Cheyenne Mize and Chris Rodahoffer, with special guests Mary Feiock, Emmett Kelly, A.J. Roach and Matt Sweeney.

The songs sung on Best Troubador are pulled from all over - from Haggard's 3rd album in 1967 through to his 47th in 2011 - but this is no simple hits compilation. Capable only of occupying a

shared space between himself and Merle Haggard, Bonny chose personal favorites, singing the songs he wanted to sing, to find Merle and himself together in the music. Only two of Hag's thirty-eight (!) country number ones are included, and only two others that charted at all. Seven of the sixteen songs are from his later period, after his long run at the top of the country charts had ended, but before encroaching mortality could finally cease the singular and indefatigable creativity of Merle Haggard.

Best Troubador flips through his song book, landing on pages unmoored from their time and located anew. Moving from 1978 to 1969 to 2003 to 1981 allows the album to circle Haggard's music in a simulation of thought and memory, slipping around from spot to spot as if they were discrete impressions, unknown but knowable yet. Dedicated to new life and old, Best Troubadoris wistful and bittersweet and no lament at all but a tribute instead, for the triumph of a life spent in unending pursuit of the goal: new and expressive music, as our inspirations and heroes once sang it.

Excited about Best Troubador and just can't wait until May? Well, boy, do we have a surprise for you! Bonnie 'Prince' Billy is joined by frequent collaborator Oscar Parsons in a virtual reality video for Merle Haggard's classic "Mama Tried’. Presented in glorious 360 degrees of virtual reality, watch Bonnie 'Prince' Billy ride the wave of the future! Headset viewing is exclusive to the Vimeo app on your smartphone! However, monoscopic 360° playback (without a headset) can occur on the Vimeo site or embedded for desktop browsers and android mobile browsers HERE.

Real Estate have shared “Stained Glass,” their second track from the forthcoming In Mind out March 17. Last week the band posted a silent clip of the video featuring guitar tabs and keyboard parts, encouraging fans to create their own instrumental interpretations of the song before it became available to the public. Today, they’re pleased to share the full version of “Stained Glass” along with the original tutorial video. This is the second tutorial video release for Real Estate, following up on the fan favorite tutorial for “Crime” from their 2014 release Atlas.

Frontman Martin Courtney also recently sat down with NPR Music's Bob Boilen for a standalone episode of All Songs Considered, discussing everything from the new album's Abbey Road influences, the origin of "Darling," to his recent fatherhood. Listen here.

Real Estate kick off an extensive North American headline tour next month. They've also added a second Brooklyn Steel show by popular demand and will make stops at SXSW and Coachella. Full dates below. More SXSW events to be announced soon.

In Mind is available on CD, LP and digitally. An exclusive limited edition deluxe LP (very few copies left!) featuring heavyweight colored vinyl, gold foil imprinted packaging (pictured below), and a slipmat, is available to pre-order from Domino Mart. All pre-orders from Domino Mart and iTunes pre-orders will come with an instant download of “Darling” & “Stained Glass.”

Alex G is pleased to announce his new album, Rocket, is set for a May 19th, 2017 release.

Rocket is the Philadelphia-based artist’s eighth full-length release—an assured statement that follows a slate of humble masterpieces, many of them self-recorded and self-released, stretching from 2010’s RACE to his 2015 Domino debut, Beach Music. Rocket’s sessions began shortly after Beach Music’s ended, with Alex tracking songs at home, by himself and with friends, in the gaps between a hectic 2015 and 2016 touring schedule. Rocket was mixed by Jacob Portrait (Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Bass Drum of Death), who also lent his hand to Beach Music, giving the album a fine-tuning that retains the homespun personality of earlier efforts.

Alex G will be playing a special album release show in Brooklyn, New York, on Thursday May 18th. The show will be at The Park Church Co-Op, and tickets go on sale this Friday here. Also announcing today is an all-ages hometown Rocket show on July 8th at Union Transfer in Philadelphia, PA. Tickets go on sale this Friday here. Both shows will feature special guests.

Burberry premiered its February 2017 collection for men and women, at its Makers House show venue in London on Monday night. Anna Calvi performed the show’s live soundtrack from a balcony overlooking the runway, accompanied by her band and members of the Heritage Orchestra & Choir. Her set list included her new track ‘Whip The Night’ and a cover of Christine & The Queen’s ‘iT’ and is available to purchase on iTunes and can be streamed HERE.

The ‘Live For Burberry’ EP features a number of special previously unheard tracks and reworkings of some familiar Anna Calvi originals. Receiving its worldwide premiere at last night’s show, ‘Whip The Night’ was created by Anna for the illustrious Robert Wilson’s forthcoming theatrical production ‘The Sandman’, starting this May in Dusseldorf. ‘Nathaniel’ shows off Anna’s guitar prowess and was written specifically for Burberry and ‘iT’ is a cover of Christine And The Queens’ glorious original (performed in front of front row attendee Heliose Letissier, filmed joining in HERE).

16/02/17

When West Country feedback merchant Dave Pearce resurfaced in 2015 with his first new music in more than a decade, it provided the ideal opportunity to introduce his out-of-print back catalogue to a whole new audience. Following the excitement generated by the re-release of Further, Chorus and Distance last year, Domino are reissuing three more of his peerless early works – the self-titled debut, New Lands and Mirror – available on the 14th of April, 2017.

Flying Saucer Attack’s self-titled debut album, released in 1993, was commonly known as ‘Rural Psychedelia’ – an apt description for the rough-hewn soundscapes they crafted. These bedroom recordings made a virtue of the otherworldly, hissy mechanics of four-track cassette-to-vinyl duplication. Pearce realised that you didn’t need to layer 16 guitar tracks in an expensive studio to make a big noise. Recording directly on to a four-track resulted in a thick, distorted, abrasive sound that suited his needs perfectly.

New Lands, released in 1997, was album proper No 3, described by Pearce as “phase two” of the FSA project. It found Pearce operating alone and finally realising the guitar sound that had been in his head all along. “Something like AR Kane’s god-like Up Home!,” he revealed in an interview at the time. It was a stark and often challenging listen (Pearce stated in one interview that it was originally going to be called Fuck You!), yet utterly beguiling.

Mirrorwould turn out to be Pearce’s final offering as FSA for 15 years, but at the time of its release in 2000 it felt like the start of something exciting and new – it was seen in some quarters as one of the first great records of the millennium. Sonically, it was Pearce’s most accessible and melodic album. “His sombre, acoustic folk still recalls the gentle melancholy of Nick Drake,” said the Pitchfork review, “but for the first time, the melodies and lyrics can be clearly deciphered.”

This move into thrilling new sonic territories should have pointed the way forward for Pearce – instead, until his surprising comeback, it was a full stop on a brilliant and idiosyncratic career.

This is the first time that FSA and Mirror have been released by Domino. FSA vinyl will be available in a board mounted ‘tip on’ gatefold sleeve. The artwork for Mirror is replicated from the original Flying Saucer Attack edition. The albums will all be available on heavyweight vinyl (with download cards), CD & digital formats.

Animal Collective announce The Painters EP, a new companion release to last year’s album Painting With. The EP will be available digitally this Friday, February 17, almost a year to the date of their 10th studio album’s release. Pre-order the CD and 12” exclusively from Animal Collective’s store.

The EP contains three new and original tracks recorded during the Painting With era, and also includes a studio recording of “Jimmy Mack” (made famous by Martha & The Vandellas), a cover performed on their recent tours. Watch a lyric video for the opening track "Kinda Bonkers" below.

All pre-orders receive an instant download of “Kinda Bonkers” and a download of the EP this Friday, February 17. The EP features artwork by Brian DeGraw, as pictured below, who supplied the original portraits and artwork for Painting With.

The band return to the US & Canada in May 2017 for headlining live dates including a show at the new venue Brooklyn Steel in Brooklyn, NY. This follows on a recent winter tour of Florida and an Animal Collective-curated three day camping festival in Big Sur, CA this past autumn. Find all the dates below.

South London trio Little Cub will release their debut album Still Life on 28th April on Domino. Marrying a wry, worldly and subversive form of diarist lyricism with sumptuously evocative electronic production, Still Life announces the arrival of a band at once deeply in tune with the greatest traditions of progressive, homespun British pop music and at odds with the increasingly vacuous pop culture they are born into.

Following the release of its first tracks ‘Loveless’ and ‘My Nature’, the band have shared the album’s opening track and first official single, ‘Too Much Love’. Watch the video for the new single, directed by Lily-Rose Thomas, below.

“’Too Much Love’ is a song about about cynicism. For the video, we took a bunch of our experiences and experiences of our friends and reset them into a sort of modern day morality tale based around where we live. Except, there is no moral really,” quotes vocalist Dominic Gore. “The decisions, good or bad, all live in the grey area where I think most of us reside. Like a Groundhog Day where no lessons are learnt and nothing really changes.”

Little Cub is Dominic Gore, Duncan Tootill and Adrian Acolatse. Whilst now residing and writing in Peckham, their story begins in the banker-belt ennui of Dorking, Surrey, the sort of faceless suburban hinterland that J.G. Ballard was obsessed with. It was in this less than illustrious setting that Gore and Tootill first met by chance. The two hit it off over a shared love of James Murphy's seminal DFA Records, early Aphex Twin and New Order and before long began meeting up to share ideas for original songs alongside Ady Acolatse, whom Gore had met on a night out in the blare and glare of Fabric nightclub the previous summer.

What emerged from the bonding of the trio’s mutual ethos’ is the warm, dynamic, modular sound of Still Life, with elements of house, techno and ambient reflective of the group's evolving taste coalescing with fruits of a shared jazz background and indie sensibility to provide the perfect landscape for Gore's tight, almost hymn-like verses on the trials and tribulations of 21st century living.

Still Life was produced by Little Cub and mixed by the band, Oli Bayston (Boxed In) and Alexis Smith. It will be released on limited deluxe 12” gold vinyl, including album download card plus seven bonus remixes by the band, via Domino Mart, CD and digitally.

The band will celebrate the release of Still Life with a London headline date at The Lexington on Tuesday 9th May. Tickets are on sale now via the link HERE.

Yorkston/Thorne/Khan release their new album Neuk Wight Delhi All-Stars on 7th April. Itfollows the band’s debut album, 2016’s critically acclaimed Everything Sacred, and presents a confluence of currents, among them the north Indian sarangi; jazz-tinged bass, reminiscent in places of Danny Thompson; acoustic guitar that owes a debt to Elizabeth Cotton, Dick Gaughan and Mississippi John Hurt; and three very different vocalists - James Yorkston (East Neuk of Fife), Jon Thorne (Isle of Wight) and Suhail Yusuf Khan (New Delhi).

The first track to be shared from Neuk Wight Delhi All-Stars is ‘False True Piya’ – mingling traditions as diverse as Britain and India via the Appalachian Mountains.

“Piya is a word in the Hindi language, meaning beloved,” explains Khan. “The Hindi lyrics of the song were composed and written by me. They talk about a lover who is longing for a beloved, devastated by pain. A point comes when the lover starts hallucinating that the beloved has arrived and starts having conversations with this hallucination. There is a strange feeling of dark happiness: the beloved is there, but only as a hallucination.”“When Suhail explained the Hindi lyric to me,”Yorkston continues, “it reminded me of the great old song The Daemon Lover, also known as The House Carpenter, so I sang a fragment of Annie Watson’s version to introduce the piece.”

This harmonious and singular collaboration can be found across all of Neuk Wight Delhi All-Stars, and in fact, YTK’s Everything Sacred may be the only precedent. “The combination of a singer-songwriter, a jazz bassist and an Indian classical sarangi player is totally unheard off,” says Khan.

A collection of traditional Indian and UK folk songs, beautiful originals and idiosyncratic covers, Neuk Wight Delhi All-Stars does not only bring together Indian classical music and jazz, then, but kosmische too; Yorkston also cites dub reggae, Uilleann pipes and the Madagascan guitarist D’Gary as influences. That breadth, says Thorne, is critical: “I think YTK is a fine example of how music operates without boundaries as a common international language and a source of cross-cultural unity. It’s an important message in the times that we live in.”

Produced by YTK and recorded entirely onto 24 track 2” tape at Analogue Cat studios in Northern Ireland by Julie McLarnon, Neuk Wight Delhi All-Stars comes after a period of steady touring for the band (including incredible main stage performances at Green Man, Celtic Connections and Edinburgh International Festival, and tours in India, Spain and Ireland) and reflects the confidence and increasingly fluid interplay between Yorkston, Thorne and Khan. The trio will head back on the road in April for a headline UK tour.

Real Estate has confirmed details for their upcoming fourth LP – In Mind – out March 17th via Domino. Recorded in Los Angeles with Grammy-winning producer Cole M.G.N. (Beck, Snoop Dogg, Julia Holter), album opener ‘Darling’ is available now along with accompanying music video, directed by Weird Days.

Over 11 songs, In Mind pushes the band in new directions, while still retaining the warmth and soft-focus narratives that one has come to expect from Real Estate —pastoral guitars, elegantly deployed arrangements, a mindful melancholy. In Mind offers the sound of a mature band not only at the height of its power, but in a period of change. Since their last record – 2014’s Atlas – primary songwriter Martin Courtney became a father of two and moved to upstate New York, while bassist Alex Bleeker relocated to California. In addition, following the departure of co-founding member and lead guitarist Matt Mondanile in 2015, Courtney, Bleeker, drummer Jackson Pollis and keyboardist Matt Kallman welcomed longtime friend and New Jersey native Julian Lynch into the band as a full-time guitarist.

Atlas was an undisputed breakout for the band. Apart from being one of the most lauded records of that year, it earned them performances on Letterman and Conan, their third consecutive Pitchfork Best New Music, and saw them sell out London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire – their biggest UK headline date so far.

In addition to a spot at Coachella this Spring, Real Estate will tour extensively behind In Mind - more info coming soon.

In Mind will be available on CD, LP and digitally. An exclusive limited edition deluxe LP featuring heavyweight colored vinyl, gold foil imprinted packaging, and a slipmat, is available to pre-order from Domino Mart. iTunes pre-orders will come with an instant download of ‘Darling’.

Electric Lines, the new album from producer Joe Goddard, is all about connections. The title refers to the colourful cables that link the modules in his Eurorack synthesizer and to the invisible wires that run between all the different kinds of electronic music that he loves. An apt title for a record which brilliantly unites the strands of his prolific career: member of Hot Chip and the 2 Bears, songwriter, producer, DJ, Grammy award nominated remixer and co-founder of the Greco-Roman label.

Like Four Tet, Caribou and Jamie xx, Joe combines a thirst for experimentation, an instinctive understanding of the dancefloor and a love of left-of-centre pop music. Electric Lines confirms his place in the front rank of British producers.

Today Goddard also drops the video for new single ‘Music Is The Answer’, the second track to be heard from the forthcoming album.

Following hot on the heels of ‘Lose Your Love’, ‘Music Is The Answer’ is an infectious left-of-centre pop track featuring London singer-songwriter Jess Mills, also known as Slo (previous collaborations include Photek, Distance and Breakage).

Directed by Shynola creative collective (Radiohead ‘Pyramid Song’, Beck ‘E-Pro’, Blur ‘Good Song’, Queens of The Stone Age ‘Go With The Flow’), the video epitomises the track’s optimistic message and much needed modern day mantra. Director Richard Kenworthy says: “The message of this track really resonated with us coming off the back of what for most people was a dispiriting year. We'd recently been reading about the AWOL Hitomi satellite, and also the incredible Pinchas Gutter hologram and that lead to imagine a story about a satellite lost in the vastness of space, broadcasting a recorded message of hope.”

Elsewhere on the album, Hot Chip bandmate Alexis Taylor features on the title track ‘Electric Lines’, while Michigan based singer Daniel Wilson makes an appearance on disco-sampling deep house track ‘Home’. Jess Mills graces the album’s two most irresistible pop songs, ‘Ordinary Madness’ and ‘Music Is the Answer’. Joe himself sings on a few tracks including the deeply personal ‘So Long’, a tender reflection on parenthood and mortality. Electric Lines treasure chest of styles also includes lustrous electronic soul (‘Lose Your Love’), rippling UK garage (‘Truth Is Light’) and shamanic psychedelic techno (‘Children’). The result is an album set to draw the map of 2017’s musical landscape and cement Joe Goddard as one of the UK’s most credible and well respected producers.

Electric Lines will be available on Deluxe Edition Vinyl, featuring a signed double LP on heavyweight vinyl with a wide spined sleeve, exclusive bonus 12” featuring 3 tracks from the Electric Lines’ album sessions, download card with album + 12” tracks. A UK specific edition will also include entry to the Electric Lines album launch show at London’s Heaven on Thursday 4th May 2017. The CD will feature an initial card pack pressing with a 6 page artwork booklet. You can purchase the album digitally HERE and via Amazon HERE. Vinyl and CD both feature completely unique, separate artwork.

Electric Lines tracklisting:

1 Ordinary Madness

2 Lose Your Love

3 Home

4 Lasers

5 Human Heart

6 Children

7 Truth Is Light

8 Nothing Moves

9 Electric Lines

10 Music Is The Answer

‘Electric Lines’ will be released April 21, 2017 on Greco-Roman/ Domino

The new Dirty Projectors song ‘Up In Hudson’ is an elegy — to the Obama years, to a generation of indie rock, and to a relationship. Over the course of nine verses and almost eight minutes, the lyrics situate David Longstreth & his band in the vivid textures of the recent past like a millennial Blood On The Tracks. It is a piece of epic storytelling unlike anything else in Dirty Projectors’ discography.

To arrive where we began and know the place for the first time: ‘Up In Hudson’ is an origin story for a new chapter of Dirty Projectors.

And with it, Dirty Projectors announce their long-awaited 7th LP.

The new album does everything we want and expect from Dirty Projectors — but in a way we never could have imagined or anticipated. In a career of surprising conceptual gambits, unexpected stylistic evolutions, and continually changing lineups — this is, as DJ Khaled says, “ANOTHER ONE”!

Dirty Projectors will be out February 24, 2017 on Domino.

Tracklisting:

01. Keep Your Name

02. Death Spiral

03. Up In Hudson

04. Work Together

05. Little Bubble

06. Winner Take Nothing

07. Ascent Through Clouds

08. Cool Your Heart

09. I See You

The deluxe edition LP will be available exclusively through the Domino Mart. The deluxe features the album on 150g clear with black smoke double LP, housed in a wide spine jacket with a 16-page 11x11 libretto, and an etched D side. The first pressing of the CD features an O-card sleeve with a 16-page libretto.

Domino are proud to announce Solide Mirage, the fourth studio album from Frànçois & The Atlas Mountains. An album of strength, beauty, ups and downs, Solide Mirage is the group’s most outspoken and deep-rooted work to date, and is set for release on March 3rd 2017.

Alongside the announcement of Solide Mirage, Frànçois & The Atlas Mountains have shared the album’s first single, ‘Grand Dereglement’, plus a video directed by Jack Barraclough and Frànçois himself. The video is a collaboration between Frànçois and Palestinian Dabké dancer Mohamed Okal, who fled with his family from the conflicts in Gaza, where he used to work as an ambulance driver. The two met in a volunteer refugee space in Brussels where Okal taught Dabké. On the video Frànçois says: “The lyrics of the song are about the great changes in the world that move populations, and force the weaker to adapt to an intense and strenuous lifestyle. Filming Dabké dancing inside one the most emblematic buildings of the Capital of Europe (Palais de Justice) is a way of showing the positive side of civilisation shifts.”

In the time since 2014’s Piano Ombre, Frànçois Marry rediscovered his adolescent passion for the power of grunge. This energy he “lost on the way”, in his own words, resurfaced on two occasions. A collaboration with Hedi Slimane, who allowed him to immerse himself in the punk and grunge scene of L.A. - with bands like Wand and Sunflower Bean in particular - revived his passion for this electricity. Secondly, and especially, as the band performed live dates in the Middle East, they found themselves playing to a youth still feverish after its Arab Spring. “We played in Istanbul, Lebanon, Alexandria and Cairo in 2015”, explains Frànçois. “We discovered a youth eager for music, in particular the Egyptian youth, who had made the revolution two years earlier.”

As a man and as an artist, it felt necessary to have that grunge-ful spite, that healthy anger, to survive the horrors of 2015 and the chaos of the world, referred to in “Grand Dérèglement”, the introduction of Solide Mirage. Attacks, wars, the migrant crisis, generalised fear, the pre-apocalyptic atmosphere: a dark year for all and one which incited profound questions in Frànçois Marry. “We questioned ourselves a lot. It’s delicate to speak about politics in songs, but inevitable when you write in moments like these. I have a natural attraction to abstract poetry but I realised that it had become a head-in-the-sand technique. I do not understand why musicians do not ask themselves more questions about the responsibility of their words. And considering the realities of life in the year 2015, I had to think about what we wanted to say”

Solide Mirage - like an imperceptible dream, a fantasy where reality shifts as one approaches it – is a perfect definition for this protean, changeable-yet-direct album which reveals new facets and new territories in every listen. Sometimes soft (on 1982, Apocalypse à Ipsos, Pepétuel été, 100.000.000), sometimes tough (Bête Morcelée and its rush of pure grunge, Grand Dérèglement and the roughness and splinters of Jamais Deux Pareils), sometimes crazy (the digitized trance ofÂpres Après), but always highly political, whether direct or reading between the lines.

The album was recorded in Jet Studios in Brussels and produced by Ash Workman, who also worked on Piano Ombre and who has worked with Metronomy and Christine & The Queens, with strings performed by Owen Pallett.

To celebrate the release of Solide Mirage, Frànçois will be playing a string of live dates across the UK at the end of March 2017.